The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1887-04-01

fact not bug but beetle. The
distinction between the two is
marked, for the beetles all bite, gnaw
with Jaws or mandibles The bugs all
take their food by piercing with beak
and suction. All of the natural history
of the Plum Curculio that the grower
need learn is very short and simple,
which l will give in very few words.
The mother beetle is small dark ash
or dark gray colored insect about the
size, and looks very much like the dry
bud of sweet cherry tree when she is
at rest, with her legs and snout folded
close together, form which she quick
ly takes when disturbed or frightened
in any way. She comes out of the
shelter in which she has passed the
winter, the first warm days of spring
about the time the buds begin to open
on the plum or cherry trees. She can
fly slowly and laboriously, and usually
does so only against gentle wind. Be
ing very hungry after her winter fast
ing, she at once seeks food, therefore
directs her flight to the nearest food &C
eeptable to her taste. Such food she
finds in the opening buds and young
shoots of nearly all kinds of fruit and
perhaps many ether trees. On these
she feeds, selects her mate, and by the
time the fruit is large enough is ready
to lay her sixty to one hundred and
twenty eggs in them. In the fruit of
the plum she usually lays one egg in
each fruit near the blossom end. When
doing this she eats out small round
hole through and under the skin of the
fruit, the widest at the bottom end wit
her Jaws which are at the end of hel
beak like snout She then reverses
herself, drops an egg in the mouth OF
5he hole, then turns around again and
,hoves The egg down to the bottom of it
with her snou1, and then cuts half way
around and under the egg, leaviugit in
kind of flap, this last cutting leaving
a crescent shaped mark like new
moon, half way or more surrounding
the dot (hole) where the egg was laid.
he egg soon matches creamy white
tootless grub with dark reddish brown
head, which at once begins to feed on
J the pulp of the fruit, usually burrowing
towards the seeds.
In a few weeks the grub reaches
maturity-in the meantime the fruit
has fallen to the ground-emerges from
the fruit. buries itself in the ground
from few inches to three feet, where
1t changes to .pupa, aud then in due
course Of time, longer or shorter, owing
to the moisture and temperature of the
soil, changes to the perfect or beetle
state, and feeds on fruits generally so
long as the weather is warm enough,
and then seeks shelter in which to pass
the winter This briefly is the natual
history of this pest as has been worked
out by many independent observers. |
call attention to this insect at this time
to show how utterly absurd arenineteen
twentieths OF the remedies for the pro.
lection of our fruits against being
'stung" by this beetle. Some weeks
ago | read in one Of our agricultural
j 'urnals of the country nine different
plans of protecting fruits against dam
age by it, not one Of which would be OF
the least practical value generally, but
either of them might, under certain
conditions, seemingly have proven
perfectly effective. This very curious
state of facts exists from this reason !:
the Plum Curculio when laying her
eggs is an exceedingly timid insect,
and is very easily frightened entirely
away from the tree. She has the habit
in her egg laying season of instantly
dropping to the ground if the tree is
Jared or disturbed, and lying curled
up on the ground as if dead until the
cause of her fright has passed. My OBJ
servations show that she seldom, if
ever, climbs up the trunk of the tree
but always reaches it by flight. She
cannot fly directly upwards from the
tree from which she had fallen, but
can only rise in flight at an acute angle
with the ground against the wind, and
will, for this reason find and align in
different tree from the one on which
she had been feeding. BY this simple
habit alone is explainable why so many
utterly worthless and silly plans have
been given in good faith by persons for
completely protecting the plum from
| the plum curculiO.